History
The team originated in 1972 as the Wexford Warriors of the Metro Junior B league, when the original Wexford Raiders jumped to the Junior A Ontario Provincial League in 1972. When the Junior A Raiders folded in 1981, the Junior B Warriors adopted the Raider name and kept it until 2006.
The Wexford Raiders were one of the strongest teams to play in the Metro Junior A Hockey League. A losing team for much of its history, they become one of the most dominant squads in 1990, under coaches Stan Butler and Kevin Burkett. Butler and Burkett coached the Wexford Raiders midget team to the 1989 championship, then took most of the players to the Junior B level in 1990, and they served as the foundation to four consecutive Metro championship squads. During the 1990s, under the management of Burkett and Butler, the Raiders sent more players on NCAA Division I hockey scholarships than any other junior team in North America. In 1994, the Raiders defeated the Caledon Canadians 4-games-to-0 in the Metro League final. The Canadians were granted the permission to host the Dudley Hewitt Cup that year and ended up winning it despite losing the Metro final.
In 1998, again playing Caledon, the Raiders won the last Metro Junior "A" title in game 7 by a score of 9–0. In 2006, the Raiders changed their name to the Toronto Jr. Canadiens and took on the colours of the Montreal Canadiens.
On February 11, 2007, after 144 minutes and 32 seconds of play, the Canadiens defeated the Pickering Panthers in Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs. [1] The game-winning goal was credited to Kyle Wetering at the 4:32 mark of the 5th overtime. Toronto outshot Pickering 88–86. [2] On February 12, 2007, TSN show That's Hockey showed highlights of the game and announced that the history of the game may be preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame as the longest junior hockey game in history, far surpassing the previous record. The game has been officially named the longest game in Ontario Hockey Association history. [3]
In 2025, the league announced the relocation of the franchise to the Ray Twinney Recreation Complex in the Town of Newmarket. [4] The franchise was rebranded as the Newmarket Hurricanes, a callback to the Newmarket Hurricanes (1997–2019) that rebranded as the Milton Menace in 2019. [5]
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